GERE GOBLE

Drat It | The house looks great, so now what?

Gere Goble
USA TODAY NETWORK-Ohio

My interest in beautifying my surroundings became apparent at an early age.

One of this summer's landscaping projects.

When I was a preschooler, I very much enjoyed hanging pictures on the walls, but I wasn’t allowed to have tape. I somehow got it in my head that all I needed to do was lick the back of my drawings and stick them on the wall.

My brothers thought that was hilarious. They laughed at me.

They laughed even more when they realized it was actually working. A picture I hung on the living room door held fast for weeks, becoming the stuff of family legend.

One evening when my parents had company, I was handed a can of ginger ale and sent to my room to play quietly.

I did OK on the “play quietly” part, but I accidentally spilled a little bit of the pop on the hardwood floor.

That pop really made the floor look great — it gave the wood an incredible, glossy shine. Instead of cleaning it up, I spread it around.

Thrilled by my discovery, I decided to make the whole floor shine. I emptied the entire can. I knew Mom would be thrilled.

Mom was not thrilled.

When I was in school, one of my favorite hobbies was rearranging my bedroom furniture.

It never occurred to me to ask for my parents’ help or permission. I’d just start moving stuff around. The bed was on a metal frame with castors, so it wasn’t to hard to move. The chest of drawers was the biggest challenge: I’d usually have to push against it with my entire body just to move it a few inches, because I never bothered to remove the drawers or anything.

In retrospect, this habit of mine was probably pretty rough on Mom’s hardwood floors. She never said anything about it, though, probably because when I moved my furniture, I cleaned my room. The rest of the time, the place was a dump.

In my tiny bedroom, I managed to squeeze a twin bed, a chest of drawers, a dresser, four bookshelves, a desk (with chair), an old army trunk and a baritone horn. Doing so required a great deal of creativity, but I made it work.

After I left my parents’ home, I moved six times in 10 years. I got back in the habit of redecorating frequently. If I had nothing better to do on a Saturday, I’d clean house and move furniture.

The first place I rented came fully furnished. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom once and saw what I believed to be a cockroach.

Very soon thereafter, I moved into my next apartment with a my army trunk, a cot and some milk crates. I started buying furniture at flea markets, yard sales and auctions. When co-workers had furniture to give away, I was first in line.

Each time I moved, I needed a bigger truck.

Then we bought the house, and none of my furniture worked. We had three bedrooms and one twin bed. I had a lovely dining room table with matching buffet, but no dining room. None of the tables I owned fit in the eat-in kitchen. I had a ridiculous number of wooden chairs, but no upholstered ones. And the milk crates that had housed my stereo equipment for years just didn’t cut it in the big living room, nor did the old microwave cart that held the little TV.

Clearly, I needed to do more than rearrange the furniture.

I’ve done a lot of redecorating over the last 15 years, and my husband has moved a lot of furniture.

But it’s been a long time since I made any significant changes in the living room, kitchen, family room or master bedroom. I really like the way we have things now: Why change?

That’s all very well and good, but if I’m not going to be redecorating the house, what am I supposed to do? I focused my efforts on landscaping projects this summer, but the season’s coming to an end. What am I supposed to write columns about if I don’t have home improvement projects going horribly astray? I need a project.

We have one room left unfinished in the basement, but we don’t have the budget to be running electrical lines and hanging drywall.

I find myself contemplating the master bedroom. Sure, it looks great, but maybe I could make the walls an even brighter blue. Maybe I could finally figure out a way to put the lamp next to my side of the bed.

I probably should discuss this plan with my husband, though — it’s his room, too, after all. I’m guessing he would not like it if he woke up one morning and found the room rearranged.

But I have to admit, that sounds like fun.